1. CTT’s Top 10 Helpful Church Technology
Articles of 2011
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2. Table of Contents
#1 - Is Google+ the Next Best Thing for Church Communication? page 3
#2 - 9 Areas Every Church Should Measure page 6
#3 - HTML5 Improves Church Technology page 8
#4 - 6 Great Church Tech Christmas Resources page 11
#5 - 3 Ways to Maintain Your Church Production Gear page 13
#6 - Choosing the Right Worship Software page 16
#7 - 3 Reasons Why Visitor Follow-up is Critical page 18
#8 - Does Your Church Have a Social Media Policy? page 22
#9 - 4 Ways to Extend the Sermon Past Sunday Morning page 24
#10 - Tablet Computing and Church Software page 26
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3. #1 - Is Google+ the Next Best Thing for Church
Communication?
Written by Rachel Motte
Everyone is asking: will Google+ become the next best social media
destination, or merely another noisemaker in the virtual cacophony
of tweets and status updates? No one knows yet, but here are a
few Google+ pros and cons to think about:
PROS:
1. The most unique aspect of Google+
is the ability to arrange your
contacts into “Circles.” Circles help
you classify people according to
real-life relationships. For example, not all your online
connections are actually your friends. Some are acquaintances,
some are business contacts, and others may be people you’ve
never met but would like to follow. Google+ lets you put people
in the most accurate Circles, and gives you complete control over
which of these circles sees your status updates. This is perfect
for those who want to, say, share family pictures with close
friends but not with business associates.
2. Google+ tries to combine the best features
of Facebook and Twitter in a clean, easy-to-use interface. So far,
it seems to have succeeded. Most of us already use other Google
applications like Gmail and Google Reader, and their integration
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4. into the site makes it easy to switch back and forth between
applications.
3. Some have complained that the new site doesn’t play well with
others (you can’t automatically update Facebook or Twitter from
Google+, or vice versa; it’s a self-contained system), but this
may turn out to be a feature. It’s supposed to be a social
network, after all. If too much content is driven by automatic
updates, you’ll have a lot of (noisy!) content and not very many
actual people.
4. Google+ looks set to become a viable alternative to Facebook.
That’s good news for those whose concerns about Facebook’s
confusing privacy controls. It’s also good news given
that Facebook’s marketing director has said that internet
anonymity “has to go away.”
CONS:
• Google comes with its own set of privacy concerns. App
integration is convenient, but is it prudent to give one company
access to so much information? That’s certainly something to
consider.
• Don’t take down your Facebook page yet, because churches can’t
join Google+ just yet; only individuals can participate. If your
church wants to interact with people on Google+, it’ll have to do so
through individuals, and not all church staffers will feel comfortable
devoting their personal accounts to ministry work.
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5. • Google+ is still brand new, and there are still some bugs to be
worked out. It is in Beta testing, after all, and since membership is
by invitation only, your audience is limited.
If you do decide to move your online ministry into Google+, here
are a few features you may find helpful (from Google):
“Why is the Circles feature so important to you as a church leader?
Because it streamlines who you communicate with and the way you
do it. Instead of choosing between an e-mail, a blog post, or a
tweet, you now have one place to communicate and an easy way
to get the word out. The following has been observed:
• If you address something to a single person, it’s like you’ve
written an e-mail or note;
• If you address something to a Circle, such as church members,
it’s like you’ve written an open letter or newsletter;
• If you address something to a group of selected Circles, it’s
like you’ve tweeted;
• If you address something to Public, it’s like a blog post
everyone can enjoy.”
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6. #2 - 9 Areas Every Church Should Measure
Written by Steve Caton
Church leaders have a level of uncertainty about whether they are
measuring the right things. Often, just pinpointing the right areas
to measure, then isolating the method to measure them by is the
hardest task.
If I were leading a church, there are nine
areas I would want to measure consistently:
1. Attendance. I know this seems like a no-
brainer, but you’d be surprised how many
churches no longer track this. I’m not just
talking about Worship service attendance
either. Tracking small group and event attendance is equally
important and I would be sure we were tracking the faces who
show up, not just the numbers.
2. Missional participation. Who is getting involved and who
isn’t? Who has expressed a desire in missions but hasn’t
participated?
3. Volunteering. I’m always interested in connecting volunteering
to other factors like attendance, giving, serving, leading etc. I think
you’ll find that those who volunteer tend to be more engaged on
many fronts.
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7. 4. Online activity. Where are people spending their time on your
church’s Web site, and how are they using your site? This is vital to
your overall Web strategy.
5. Giving. Watch for dramatic variances in giving over time. It is a
sign of spiritual activity…or inactivity.
6. Event outcomes. It is necessary to connect each and every
event to life change. What happened as a result of your investment
of time, energy, and resources into an event?
7. Assimilation. We typically push people through our one-hour
new members’ class and then tell them to call us if they need us.
How can we be sure no one falls through the cracks? How do our
members behave differently than our attenders?
8. Growth. Where is growth taking place? What age groups? What
ministries? Why? This is important for future resource investment
planning.
9. Attrition. Why are people leaving your church? Speculation isn’t
a good idea. We need to be asking and recording what we learn.
While this might uncover painful experiences, it can lead to some
very critical changes that we might not have ever considered
before?
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8. #3 - HTML5 Improves Church Technology
Written by Lauren Hunter
Just when you thought the web couldn’t get any better, it has. With
the advent of mobile browsing (surfing the internet on your phone,
tablet, or other device), the format for displaying graphics and
video has undergone a radical update, which has the possibility of
improving church software to boot. HTML5 developed by Opera,
has become to defacto standard for all devices, and so, it quite
frankly, makes the web even better, not to mention church
technology.
Last month, Adobe, maker of
Flash, announced that it is putting all its eggs in
the HTML5 basket, which initially frightened many
website designers and software developers who
perhaps, didn’t see this coming. But for all the
other software developers (like our site’s
awesome sponsors) out there who have been
following mobile development and are on top of this
change, you’re in for a real treat.
HTML5 and Church Websites
One of ChurchTechToday’s newest sponsors, Clover Sites, makes
some of the finest church websites out there and has extremely
simple and intuitive editing software called The Greenhouse. They
too have prepared adequately for the shift by putting a plan in
place to migrate Clover over to HTML5.
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9. A few of the benefits of using website creation software that is built
in HTML5 are:
• A church’s full website (not just a mobile version of the site) will be
available on an iPhone, iPad, or any other mobile device.
• Faster loading times, better accessibility for visually-impaired
visitors, and new options to embed code into a website are also
great features.
HTML5 Rocks the Church E-Newsletter
For video email marketing software maker, BombBomb, HTML5 has
been the plan all along due to their mission to make email
marketing more personal through video.
BombBomb’s software is designed to allow email recipients to play
video right inside the inbox with HTML5 technology.
“Where HTML5 isn’t present or supported, a Flash fallback lets the
people who get your emails watch your video on a dynamically-
generated, mirrored landing page (it looks and functions exactly
like your email). This is in contrast to most others offering video
email, who play your video outside the context of your actual
email,” comments Connor McCluskey, co-founder and CEO of
BombBomb.
The bottom line is, when you’re looking at purchasing new church
technology, it pays to ask the “HTML5 million dollar question.” If a
firm’s software isn’t already planning a move over to this platform,
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10. keep searching until you find software to accomplish your goals
that will include this integral mobile platform now and into the
future.
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11. #4 - 6 Great Church Tech Christmas Resources
Written by Lauren Hunter
There are many great free and low-cost resources out there for
churches who want to succeed at reaching out to people during the
holidays. Below are six great resources:
1) Christmas Communications ebook
by Yvon Prehn. For your inspiration and
communication production convenience
during the Christmas season this 80-page
book downloadable ebook has how-to
articles to make you more effective in your
church communications for Christmas,
plus ready-to-print PDFs that range from
very simple one, clip art designs to ones
using full-color illustrations. Cost: $6.50
(http://effectivechurchcom.com)
2) Year-End Giving Free ebook: If your church is looking to
maximize the year-end giving habits of the people in your pews, I
would highly recommend you download this ebook immediately.
It’s completely free. (http://www.serviceu.com/year-end-giving)
3) LeadNet Community Groups: Leadership Network launched
three new Leadership Community topics during 2011: Next Chapter
Pastors, University Ministry, and Multiethnic Churches, and four
new InnovationLab topics: Internet Campuses, Dream Centers,
Campus Pastors, and Externally Focused Small Groups. Great
communities to help expand and grow your church.
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12. 4) Evernote for Pastors ebook: Ron Edmondson and Ben
Stroup have recently released a great new ebook to help pastors
become more organized and productive through the use of
technology. Through January 31, 2012, Ron’s new
ebook, “Evernote for Pastors,” is on sale for just $1.99 per copy.
For less than a cup of joe at Starbucks, you can have access to a
great pastor resource, written by a pastor who understands the
challenges you face. (http://evernoteforpastors.com)
5) BombBomb Email Marketing Free Template
Offer: BombBomb is one of the top video email marketing
solutions on the market for churches (and well, anyone). Currently
they are still offering new customers two free templates so that
your email newsletters and digital communication can match your
church website or business. This is a great offer – don’t miss out on
getting your church set up to become a better communicator in
2012! (http://bombbomb.com)
6) ROAR and LifeWay Partner to Give 1,000 Churches Free
Mobile Apps: LifeWay Christian Resources and ROAR, a mobile
app development group, are giving mobile church apps to 1,000
churches throughout the month of December. ROAR, LifeWay’s
recommended church app development partner, will customize
mobile apps on the platform of the church’s choice. Church leaders
can choose either iPhone/iPad, Android, or both. Offer is only good
through Dec. 31, 2011, so act now. (http://roar.pro/digitalchurch)
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13. #5 - 3 Ways to Maintain Your Church Production Gear
Written by Bryan Brooks
Maintaining your church’s production gear is an absolute must. Like
any other kind of technology, it requires our care to continue
working properly. I hate to be gloomy, but things like unreliable
performance, intermittent glitches and a slough of technical
problems will constantly plague your church productions on a
regular basis if you don’t maintain your equipment properly.
If you don’t have a regular maintenance
program in place for your church production
gear you should seriously consider
establishing one. Whether you have a small
church with just a few pieces of gear or a
large one with a ton of gear, maintaining it
properly will get you into the land of technical peace.
If you already have a maintenance program in place at your
church, that is fantastic! But for those that don’t yet or are in the
process of establishing one, here is a list of 3 basic items every
maintenance program should include:
1. A complete inventory of all of your gear. This includes
things like the manufacturer, model, location, serial #, P/N#’s. You
need to know what you have and the basic details about it. Take it
a step further and create an Excel spreadsheet with all this critical
info, and make it available to the administrative pastor at your
church.
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14. 2. Maintenance procedures for your gear. There are a couple
of options for procedures: Some people choose to extract the
important maintenance items from the manufacturers manual and
develop their own simple one or two page procedures. Taking the
technical jargon and turning it into an easy to read document that
can be understood by a church volunteer. Or another option would
be to just use the procedures listed out in the manufacturer
manuals, which is typically found in the back of it. Once you create
these procedures, make sure it’s posted in a communal location so
that others can fill in if need be.
3. Maintenance schedule master worksheet that lists out each
piece of gear, the maintenance item that needs to be completed
and the recommended maintenance schedule. For example:
o Projectors
Eiki Projector LC-XT4/ Clean Filter / Quarterly
o Computer systems
Mac Pro Tower system / Blow dust out of hardware
components / monthly
o Lighting Fixtures
Mac550 Mover / Remove dust from the head fans and air
vents / Monthly
Once you have these basic items in place, then its time to start
performing the maintenance. You yourself can do it if you have the
experience, you can train up church volunteers to do it or even hire
an AVL consulting company.
Think of maintaining your church production gear like maintaining
your car. You know that your car needs maintenance to run
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15. efficiently. With proactive regular maintenance on your car, you
feel safer when you drive it and you save money with things like
better gas mileage and longer engine life. But, when its not
properly maintained it doesn’t function effectively and sooner-or-
later it will break down and won’t run at all. That’s called “Reactive
Maintenance” — Let’s wait until it breaks, and then fix it. I don’t
recommend that approach. That approach not only will cost you
more, but in some cases, it takes a lot more time to get things
repaired and back to normal operation.
I am a huge advocate and play an active role in ensuring that
maintenance on the gear at our church The Father’s House gets
done, seeing the results of increased reliability and performance in
our gear is well worth the effort and time investment. Of course we
are not exempt just like you from gear glitches every now and
again, but it sure does give the tech people and the pastors a
peace of mind to know that they can just serve God with their gifts
and talents without the technology creating a major distraction to
the spiritual climate of the production.
The bottom line is this, whether you’re a tech person or a pastor,
maintaining the church production gear we rely on week in and
week out is necessary. We need to be good a steward of the
technology God has blessed us with, which means taking care of it
regularly. By implementing a basic maintenance program, you will
see the fruit of a church production system that every time it’s
turned on will produce the level of excellence, reliability and
performance you expect from it.
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16. #6 - Choosing the Right Worship Software
Written by Jeffrey Miranda
You might be ready to start using a worship software package that
will allow you a greater deal of flexibility over PowerPoint. There
are a variety of software packages available, but the important
question is how do you decide which one will best fit your church’s
needs?
Easy Worship is one of the most
commonly used software packages. It
provides both the King James and
American Standard version. This will
allow you to chose scripture on the fly. It
features an easy to use interface,
supports dual video outputs, and has a whole host of transitions to
chose from. It also allows for use of live video.
Another common software package used is Song Show Plus. It has
an even more extended feature-set. This software also allows for
dual monitors, video, and had a database of over 6,000 songs.
While simple, it offers more video control over Easy Worship. Both
packages allow you to overlay text over graphics and video. This is
an especially cool feature if you are looking to put either the words
of a sermon or the words of a song over a special background,
photos, or a video. I have seen special videos used under lyrics
during Easter and Christmas celebrations, and they can certainly
enhance the service.
A third commonly used package is Presentation Manager. While I
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17. have heard of this software being used less than the first two, this
particular package is especially well-suited to smaller churches. If
you are a church on a tight budget, simply looking for a PowerPoint
replacement, without many of the bells and whistles, this could be
a good choice. It provides a flexible format, with an easy-to-use
interface. Many of these church presentation software packages
are available to try on a free trial basis. I would suggest trying
several of them before purchasing, just to make sure it is exactly
what you are looking for.
Media Shout is also a great option and used by many churches. I
also found a fairly comprehensive list of worship software
companies listed here.
Additionally, ProPresenter by Renewed Vision is also a popular
choice, with ProPresenter 5 due out in 2012. Proclaim Online and
Easy Slides are also viable options.
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18. #7 - 3 Reasons Why Visitor Follow-up is Critical
Written by Lauren Hunter
My family recently visited a nearby mega church because a family
friend was speaking during a part of the church service. We have
friends that attend this church, we know people in leadership there,
and the church has a thriving Christian school where many youth in
our area attend. That said, the way in which they followed up with
us – because we registered our kids for their classes – was very
nice. It caused me to ponder on visitor follow up, and why this is
critical for churches:
1) Reason One: Visitors need you to
start the conversation. Visitor follow
up is critical because if the church is going
todraw people in to meet their needs and
show them who Jesus is, you have to first
get the conversation started. Now I’ll
admit, sometimes people visit your
church, are greeted well, sit by very
friendly people who immediately invite the
new couple out to lunch, and the rest is history. But we all know
that isn’t really what happens most of the time. Getting the
conversation started usually means that the church has to have
some kind of follow up procedure in place to begin the
conversation in the first place.
o What does your first time visitor follow up procedure look
like?
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19. 2) Reason Two: Visitors are your opportunity to grow your
church. Perhaps you aren’t driven by numbers, that’s okay.
There’s a natural ebb and flow of church membership; some folks
join, some folks leave. Unfortunately, this is often referred to as
“the revolving door” of church attendance. Without a follow-up
procedure, the cycle continues and church leadership aren’t quite
sure why people come and go without really knowing what’s going
on. By reaching out to visitors and current attenders, you have a
huge opportunity to pull people in, let them know you care, cast a
vision of where the church is going, and encourage spiritual
growth.
o How will you aim to stop the “revolving door” of church
attendance and
3) Reason Three: People expect you (the church) to care
about them. This might sound silly – of course you care about
them! But imagine for a moment that you visit a new church, you
even go out on a limb to fill out a visitor card or bulletin tear off to
let the church know you’re new, then you receive no
communication in return. In my book, that’s called rejection. If you
want to show visitors that you care about their spiritual journey,
then you have to set up practices that ensure they are
communicated with within a week or so of their first visit.
o How quickly do you communicate with visitors and how do
you reach out? (phone, email, mail, etc.)
Technology can play a huge role in alleviating the burden of follow-
up. Most church management systems have follow-up protocols
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20. built in or have customizable ways to assign follow-ups with specific
pastors via your communication method of choice. Here are some
of the top church software companies out there that can get you
started with figuring out a method to your church’s follow-up
madness:
• Church Community Builder – Here’s a great success story on
growth via first-time visitors.
• Fellowship One – Recently acquired Connection Power and
ServiceU.
• Bellevue Church Management System – Church plant shares
success.
• IconCMO – Just launched the first iPad Web App for churches.
Additionally, companies like ServiceU that offer online event
registration, online giving, and other events management
solutions offer the ability to capture first timer data – whether
from events or donations – so that church staff can follow up
with them in the future.
Lastly, BombBomb is a great company that offers church-
focused video email marketing and integrates with man of the
church software companies above to make reaching out via email
more streamlined and less of a hassle.
Below is a bulleted list of methods to use for communication:
• Personal Email
• Email newsletters
• Video email newsletters or individual communication with video
email
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21. • Phone calls
• Direct mail
• Personal letters or cards
• Personal invitations
• Visitation
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22. #8 - Does Your Church Have a Social Media Policy?
Written by Lauren Hunter
It’s undeniable these days that churches should have a written
social media policy (or collection of policies for each social media
outlet). It’s like the old proverb, “Those who fail to plan, plan to
fail.” With pretty much everyone on one social media site or
another, chances are you as a church need to have a plan in place
to help guide conduct no matter what site.
There are many resources online
available if you Google, “Social Media
Policy.” Great differences lie between
secular for-profit companies and the
Church, but businesses can help lead
the way for how to create a social
media policy.
My goal is not to spell out exactly how to put together a policy, but
to get you thinking about it.
Here are a few resources I came across:
• Social Media Policy from Mashable
• Writing a Social Media Policy from Inc. Magazine Online
• Online Social Media Policy Toolmaker
• Real-Life Church Social Media Policy Example
The obvious differences between a secular policy and a policy for
church use would be including prayer as a part of your planning
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23. and strategy. The social media landscape is still somewhat of a wild
west, but through prayer and planning, churches can begin to tame
it.
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24. #9 - 4 Ways to Extend the Sermon Past Sunday Morning
Written by Lauren Hunter
Most churches encourage people to be thinking, pondering, and
praying about the message delivered during the sermon on Sunday
morning. Technology can offer many valuable ways to help extend
the sermon past Sunday morning. Here are four ways to think
about:
1) Blog about sermon preparations
prior to delivering the sermon. Be
open and honest about how God is
working in you as you pull together
the message to share with your
congregation.
2) After the sermon, blog about some of the applicational
messages that apply to everyone. Offer a few additional scripture
verses to use as application during the week.
3) If you use a bulletin insert and provide questions for additional
study or sermon notes, use these questions to prompt discussion
on your church’s Facebook page and Twitter account.
4) Use text from your blog post about sermon application as an
article to run in the weekly church e-newsletter to help continue
discussion of the sermon. Link to your church’s web-based church
management system that offers groups for private discussion about
theological issues that relate to the sermon.
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25. These are just a few ways that can assist your church in extending
the message and helping people develop a deeper relationship with
God.
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26. #10 - Tablet Computing and Church Software
Written by Steve Hewitt
Just as when church software companies feared the move from
DOS to Windows, the time is upon us now when another new
phenomenon is clamoring for attention: Tablet computing. With
Christian Computing Magazine’s church software (often referred to
as church management software or systems ChMS) issue due out
in October, it’s important to recognize that more and more people
are adopting tablets into their arsenal of technology tools—both
personally and professionally.
Nearly all of the church software
providers out there are offering a
cloud (web-based) version these
days. The next step beyond cloud
computing is mobile computing.
There is an obvious shift in the technology industry from desktop
and laptop computers to tablets, whether they run Apple or
Android operating systems.
Tablet computing offers its own advantages and perks to mobile
computing and it HAS already become the direction we are going
when we “compute.”
As I travel across the nation speaking with churches, their message
to me is they WANT their ChMS to work specifically on tablets.
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27. I am not going to write a book here about the advantages of tablet
computing, or why church software companies need to move to
specific apps or cloud ChMS that work for those accessing via
tablets, but if you read CCMag, you will be noticing more and more
articles that will be pointing all of us in that direction.
Notice Amazon.com just did a major redesign of their website so
that it works better for those accessing via tablets.
Walk into a BestBuy and notice the space in their computer
departments now given over to a host of new tablets. The iPad of
course, but here in Kansas City, (where technology is behind the
rest of the country) they are all promoting at least six
unique Android tablets.
Think tablet computing is mobile and cool but not a serious data
entry machine? Desktop computer sales continue to drop and a
substantial percent of mobile computer users state (according
to Pew Research) that their mobile device has become their
primary Internet connection!
Have you seen the new Toshiba Thrive? It has a full-sized USB and
HDMI ports and a mini-USB socket as well as the ability to add SD
cards, making it easy to transfer extra files as well as add storage.
This tablet is a true tablet, with the ability to download thousands
of practical apps that connect computing with accurate user
location, touch screen, etc. that you expect with tablet computing.
BUT, drop it into its docking station, connect a full keyboard and
mouse (via USB) and a large monitor (via HDMI) and there is little
difference between this tablet and your main computing EXCEPT it
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28. runs aps (which is what people want) and not programs (which are
dying).
I can provide several studies that say tablets will be bought five
times more this year than last, and I can provide several studies
that show tablets being bought and used more than notebooks in
three years. However, all of those studies are short sighted
because they didn’t take into account the large number of very cool
tablets that have hit the market in just the last six months. And,
now that major retailers have picked them up, marketing, sales and
distribution will increase dramatically.
One final note. The iPad is cool, no doubt. They have the best
marketing. But just like the Mac vs Windows contest of the last two
decades, I think it is obvious that the Android tablets will rule the
market. Recently we asked CCMag readers which tablet they would
like. The results were 3-1 in favor of an Android tablet over an
iPad. I believe this is due to the abilities of tablets like the Thrive
AND the fact that you cannot access FLASH on an iPad. Just try to
visit SermonSpice or WorshipHouseMedia and check out Christian
videos for your next service on an iPad. It can’t be done without
using special programs to get around the FLASH issue.
So to wrap it up, tablet computing is going to become the norm,
not the exception. Many church software companies out there offer
usability via tablets already, and others have developed specialized
apps for both iPhone and Android tablet use. If your ministry is
already using tablets, I’d love to hear about what you are doing
and how your church software is serving you in your ministry
through tablet usage.
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